Brand new to hair jigs. Take me to school.

[ironbjorn]

With all the talk about hair jigs lately, I ordered a couple Picasso FX hair jigs in 3/8 oz last night. They shipped today and will be here in 2 days.. I chose Picasso because they're one of the few quality (looking anyways, I wouldn't actually know) hair jigs with a 3/8 oz (6 in) size, or at least a 3/8 oz size in stock. I usually see these discussed in 1/2 - 1 oz for ledge fishing / deep water, but deep water for me usually means 8-10 ft. At $15 a jig hopefully I didn't screw up on size or purpose

 

So what should I know about fishing these? I literally never have.

 

I haven't been this excited about lures since BR convinced me that the Vision 110 was worth the price.

[softwateronly]

I'm following for sure.  My attempts and successes have been limited so far with the preacher style in the summer months.

 

scott

[Finessegenics]

I like to fish hair jigs with the stroking retrieve. Little wrist snap, sometimes a double snap, let it crash to the bottom and repeat. How long you want to wait to snap again is totally up to you. When I think the fish are aggressive, I snap the instant it hits the bottom. The bait is in constant motion this way. Once you try this a few times you’ll get a good cadence going and it’ll become effortless. A lot of the times, when I go back up to snap the bait, a fish is on. 3/8 oz is about the heaviest I’d use in 8ft but the faster ROF could be the ticket. 1/4 oz is generally what I like for stroking jigs (I’m usually fishing shallow). It’s a classic technique to fish along weed edges, but I use this anywhere the bait can easily cross several ambush points during my retrieve (boulders, log jams, etc..). 

 

[WRB]

Picasso hair jig is what’s known as a chicken jig because of the long hackle feathers. 

If try to rip this jig off the bottom you better have a bunch of them., 5/0 hook without a weed guard. You add a piece of finesse worm and attach it with a Hitchhiker spring to the hook eye and weedless hook the worm point to cover it.

The fish head jig isn’t designed to be a bottom contact or cover jig, it’s a swim jig.

Tom

[Fallser]

I'll be following this with interest.  This will be the first year I plan to use "hair" jigs.  In my case, bucktail, marabou, zonker(rabbit) strips and some tied with artificial hairs.  I tie my own, but all mine are tied on 1/4 oz jigs.   I'm mainly fishing in 8 to 25 feet of water.

[smalljaw67]

The "chicken jig" is just what Outkast tackle calls theirs. All preacher style jigs have long hackle feathers because they don't use a trailer and adding anything to them ruins the profile. The idea with those types of jigs is they mimic a struggling or dying minnow and it is why bucktail is preferred over synthetics because bucktail has a minnow-like profile when wet.  Jigs like that are best fished with clear water, at least 2' of visibility as they don't make noise or displace a lot of water. As for the size, I make my own mini style that is 1/4oz and I use it in 8' to 10' of water and it works well. You can simply cast and retrieve just like a swim jig or you can slow stroke it. What I do is make the cast and let the jig fall to the bottom. Then I hold the rod at the 10 o'clock position and give the reel around 9 or 10 fast cranks and stop and then let the jig fall back on a semi slack line. I lower the rod to follow the jig back to the bottom then slowly raise the rod back up and give the same 9 or 10 cranks and stop. Watch you line when doing this, a lot of time when you are following the jig back to the bottom you will get slack in the line as if it hit bottom, if you know you aren't on bottom then a fish has taken it. It is much easier than my explanation and the reason for not giving the jig a lot of input for action is it isn't supposed to move a lot. The tail feathers provide enough movement to suggest it is alive but lack of body movement is meant to mimic a baitfish ready to die so don't overwork the jig and you'll be good.

[TnRiver46]

12 minutes ago, smalljaw67 said:

The "chicken jig" is just what Outkast tackle calls theirs. All preacher style jigs have long hackle feathers because they don't use a trailer and adding anything to them ruins the profile. The idea with those types of jigs is they mimic a struggling or dying minnow and it is why bucktail is preferred over synthetics because bucktail has a minnow-like profile when wet.  Jigs like that are best fished with clear water, at least 2' of visibility as they don't make noise or displace a lot of water. As for the size, I make my own mini style that is 1/4oz and I use it in 8' to 10' of water and it works well. You can simply cast and retrieve just like a swim jig or you can slow stroke it. What I do is make the cast and let the jig fall to the bottom. Then I hold the rod at the 10 o'clock position and give the reel around 9 or 10 fast cranks and stop and then let the jig fall back on a semi slack line. I lower the rod to follow the jig back to the bottom then slowly raise the rod back up and give the same 9 or 10 cranks and stop. Watch you line when doing this, a lot of time when you are following the jig back to the bottom you will get slack in the line as if it hit bottom, if you know you aren't on bottom then a fish has taken it. It is much easier than my explanation and the reason for not giving the jig a lot of input for action is it isn't supposed to move a lot. The tail feathers provide enough movement to suggest it is alive but lack of body movement is meant to mimic a baitfish ready to die so don't overwork the jig and you'll be good.

[WRB]

Agree with the above with 1 exception; vary the reel turns from 2 to 3 in lieu of 9 to 10. Depending on the reel IPT 9 to 10 turns is between 18’ to 24’ (feet not inches) of forward movement.

We are talking about Horizontal Jigging, a technique I have been discussing since publishing In-Fisherman article in 1995, very effective hair jig presentation.

Tom

PM your email and will send you the article.

 

[softwateronly]

Threw the outcast chicken jig for a couple hours late Saturday morning.  Was fishing a hard bottom  with sparse weeds on a 18-22' flat.  Was bombing it out, semi slack sink to the bottom, 2-3 reel handle turns, and let it glide again.  I didn't let it rest too long.  Got 4 bites and landed them all, 2-3lbers, but it was fun to put a new to me technique to work.  Never got a hit on the way down, my assumption is the bass were relating to the bottom.

 

scott

 

I have 2 and threw the lighter one, which is either 1/2 or 5/8oz.  Unfortunately, they're not labeled and I don't remember what I bought 2 black fridays ago.

 

 

[Glenn]

This should help: https://www.bassresource.com/fishing/hair-jigs-tactics.html

[Glenn]

This was just posted tonight: https://www.bassresource.com/fishing/marabou-hair-jigs.html

 

[lunkerboss923]

Hair jigs are for sissy boys in Minnesota, catching smallies and walleye eyh?!! 

[RDB]

On 6/15/2022 at 6:43 PM, ironbjorn said:

I usually see these discussed in 1/2 - 1 oz for ledge fishing / deep water, but deep water for me usually means 8-10 ft. At $15 a jig hopefully I didn't screw up on size or purpose

 

So what should I know about fishing these? I literally never have.

You didn’t screw up and IMO made a good choice in choosing lighter weights considering your depths.  Just like anything else in fishing, when something sees a surge in popularity, people start looking for innovations.  You have a lot of choices on how to fish preacher style hair jigs.  Most people think of traditional style preacher jigs but there are others that potentially expand your fishing options.  In the pics below, one has a scrounger head and the other has a wide flat head that makes the jig sit at a 45 degree angle.

 

 

 

[WRB]

Marabou isn’t hair it’s feathers!

my 5 giant bass* were all caught using bucktail hair jigs with pork trailers.

Tom 

* Don’t know of anyone else catching 1 bass over 17 lbs on hair jigs. The Texas record bass was caught on a crappie jig, don’t know if it was a marabou Feather crappie jig?

[OkobojiEagle]

10 hours ago, lunkerboss923 said:

Hair jigs are for sissy boys in Minnesota, catching smallies and walleye eyh?!! 

Thank you, I appreciate you believing so.  If you could convince other bass & walleye anglers of your opinion, I'll be quiet about their effectiveness.

 

oe

[Mr. Aquarium]

I  fish mine differently. I fish it like a regular jig. Slow on bottom. The hair and feathers have a very natural fluid movement. It’s good for finicky fish or cold lethargic fish.    A hairy ned rig is awesome. 
these 2 fish were caught in a pond that was 90% frozen solid.  Got 5 bass and 5 pickerel on my jigs in an hour. 
 

i don’t bass fish much in the summer. Fall, winter and spring are when I bass fish.